For comparison, the FDA bans these antibiotics for growth promotion, but permits when recommended by a veterinarian when necessary for an animal’s health.

Antibiotics used in food animal production amount to 80 percent of antibiotic consumption worldwide.

Studies show that restricting antibiotic use in animals will reduce their prevalence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

As you might expect, opinions about this report are divided. Consumer groups, who have been advocating for these practices for years, are eager for the guidelines to be implemented immediately. So are companies like Perdue, which are already doing this.

The report shows that sales and distribution of all antimicrobials increased 1 percent from 2014 through 2015, tying for the lowest annual increase since 2009. The percentage of those antimicrobials that are considered medically important in human medicine increased by 2 percent from 2014 through 2015.

The good news: This ties for the lowest annual increase since 2009.

But here’s a summary of antibiotic use in animal agriculture:—9.7 million kilograms of medically important drugs (that’s about 20 million pounds) and another 5.9 million kilograms of antibiotics that are not important medically. (about 13 million pounds).

3.28 million kilograms of selected systemic antibacterial drugs were sold during year 2010 and around 3.29 million kilograms were sold during year 2011. Active ingredient amoxicillin had the highest proportion of total kilograms sold of all selected systemic antibacterial drug products throughout the time period examined.

OK, but the objective needs to be to decrease use of antimicrobials in animal agriculture and use them only for treatment of illnesses, not prevention.

“At McDonald’s we’re on a journey: What’s important to you is important to us.”

The ad says McDonald’s is taking these actions [with my comments]:

Removed artificial preservatives from Chicken McNuggets and other items [Fine, but no big deal in my book.]

Removed high fructose corn syrup from hamburger buns [And replaced it with what? Sugar? This matters? I’m guessing the price of HFCS must be close enough to the price of sugar to make this possible.]**

Committed to only source chickens that have not been treated with antibiotics [OK. Now we’re talking important. For this alone, McDonald’s deserves high praise. My only question: by when?]***

The ad also summarizes the company’s additional actions, done and promised:

***Andy Smith points out that “In 2015, McDonald’s announced that it would stop buying chicken raised with non-therapeutic, medically-important antibiotics by 2017– but a few weeks ago announced that it had already done so.” He too provides a reference: See QSR. “McDonald’s Eliminates Antibiotics From Its Chicken,” QSR Magazine, August 2, 2016. Retrieved at https://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/eliminates-antibiotics-its-chicken.

The gist: Are the recent actions taken by food companies an indication that consumers are having an effect at the expense of science—and at the expense of focusing on more important food issues such as too much sugar, obesity, and diabetes?

He cited these recent events:

Tyson’s says it will phase out human antibiotics in broiler production.

McDonald’s says it will source chicken that has not been treated with antibiotics.

PepsiCo says it is taking aspartame out of its diet sodas (it’s the #1 reason given for not drinking diet cola).